Editorial: School shootings: Insanity and horror

On Friday, in this space, we wrote about the growing insanity of a gun culture that has a nation so heavily armed that death-dealing weapons inevitably fall into criminal and unstable hands.

Of course, we could not have known that yet another disturbed individual would use guns to wreak horror the same day -- this time innocent young children at a school in Connecticut, along with adults, including the gunman's mother, who was a teacher at the school.

The tableau unfolded in a familiar, if funereal, fashion. Grieving and shocked families. A sorrowful president speaking from the White House. The media on full alert. Law enforcement searching, searching for some sort of clues that would explain the unexplainable.

And yes, we know that even if elected leaders set out to demilitarize America, it won't be any sort of guarantee deranged people won't have access of guns to perpetrate their evil schemes.

And clearly, we live in a culture that also has become desensitized to violence. The volatile mix of violent movies and digital "entertainment" can percolate in the minds of the seemingly growing population of young men harboring revenge fantasies or guarding insane plots.

Add in the relatively easy access to guns -- purchased, stolen, borrowed, does it matter? -- and we all watch as yet another unspeakable tragedy unfolds.

Hours after the tragedy unfolded and the explanations came forth, darkness descended on the school and the scene.